Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary in Selkirk, NY

I love that, even after living in an area for 20 years, surprise discoveries are still possible. While biking up and around the hills of Selkirk and Feura Bush yesterday, I squealed to an unexpectedly stop to explore the Hollyhock Hollow Sanctuary.

Located on the newly paved Rarick Road, the note posted to the Visitor Center door reads that the Audubon Society’s NY headquarters relocated to the Rensselaer Tech Park in early 2013. But the trails, interpretive signage and bird houses are still managed ensuring that the natural resource remain a wonderful outdoor experience for anyone wanting to enjoy the wildlife habitat.

3 Responses

Yes, Hollyhock Hollow is a wonderful, tranquil escape. I’m glad you found it.

I’m told by friends who knew the Rienows, the people who founded the nature sanctuary on their estate that was purchased by Audubon NY after their deaths, of how gracious both were to their visitors.

Aside from the wonderful scenery, Professor Rienow incorporated original ditties painted by hand on signs as descriptors for an animal, plant or other attraction that would be found nearby, that gave the place a personal touch missing from other nature sanctuaries I’ve been to visit.

May I suggest that sometime you continue riding on Old Quarry Rd. past Rarick Rd., beyond the stop sign at the intersection of Old Quarry (Rt 102 and Bridge St. (Rt 396). Once past 396 Old Quarry Rd. becomes Starr Rd. Continue on Starr another 5 or 6 miles and you will arrive at the Town of Coeymans Joralemon Park, (I’ll check later and will give you a more exact mileage from the 102/396 inersection)

Joralemon Park was purchased by the town from the estate that also owned the orchard where the Sycamore Golf Course was built and it is one of only two places in NYS with such an abundance of rare and endangered plants and wildflowers. It is a spectacular place unappreciated by our town’s leaders, most unfortunately.

Perhaps less than ten years ago, the town approved a Frisbee Golf Course to be built right through some of the most sensitive areas and the result was a trampling of dozens of species of rare plants and astonishing rare wildflowers.

No environmental impact statement was prepared or filed with the DEC by either the town or the developer. And the Town derives no benefit at all from the Frisbee Course developers.

So, while it will be far different than it was when Dr. Eugene Ogden, NYS’s second State Botanist, first walked me through the park pointing out its natural rarities, most will still find its beauty. I’m sure you will too.

On different occasions at Joralemon Park I’ve met botanists from Japan, Germany and from many other distant places, all taking photographs to add to their collection of rare plants they’ve witnessed in their natural settings, much the same as birders do.

It was here that I saw for the first and only time in my 65 years a Scarlet Tanager, a beautiful bird. And here I also saw the first Dutchman’s Breeches I had seen in many years, a plant similar to Lily of the Valley but instead of little bells hanging down, it has a row of what really do look like old fashioned pantaloons hanging from a clothesline.

Not one or two, but a wooded field of them! These I hadn’t seen since I visited my older sister at Long Island’s Camp Edy when she was a Brownie.

Here too lies not the Onesquathaw, as at Hollyhock Hollow, but the Hanacroix, the creek that was dammed to create the Alcove Reservoir, which is a few mile upstream.

And there are two tennis courts and a small playground for children.

Yes, Joralemon is indeed a special place and well worth the ride.

The cavers I met there who traveled from Montreal to explore the park’s caves thought so.